


Propinquity

by SirJosephBanksFRS



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-09
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-11 18:12:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1176259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirJosephBanksFRS/pseuds/SirJosephBanksFRS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephen Maturin arrives at the home of his uncle in Barcelona to commence his education.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Propinquity

Mateu and Francesca Domanova i Berenguer were the bookends, the eldest and youngest children of Don Joaquim Domanova i de Cerdanya, separated by a span of more than twenty years. There had been eight offspring in between and of those eight, only four had survived infancy and of those four, two had been lost to the grave and another two to the Church, until they, too, died young. Don Joaquim was not an impious man, but when his youngest child, the apple of his eye, had expressed a desire to follow her elder sister to the convent, he had put his foot down and terminated her education with the Sisters. He had more than doubled his tithe to the Church in children, he said -- three would be excessive if all ten had lived. God had spared her life after diphtheria as a baby that she might make a handsome match, be fruitful and multiply. The Poor Clares of Barcelona would be fine without her. She could do more for the Benedictine order by having her own dozen children and offering those with a vocation up to the Church herself.

 It had not worked out that way and now Don Mateu Domanova i Berenguer, a thin and stern-looking older man with very sparse greying hair and spectacles, the scion and last living member of his generation of the Domanovas, stood in his bright, spacious and airy Barcelona drawing room looking with displeasure at the very last of the Domanovas, his late youngest sister's small, thin, pale, sickly-looking natural son, as his exuberant and extroverted third cousin once removed, Don Ramon D'Ullastret i Casademon sat at his table, drained another glass of cold white _cava_ and ate another slice of _pa amb tomàquet_ to quench his thirst and sate his hunger after the long ride from Ullastret and the heat of the afternoon.

"Why is he so small?" Mateu said, quickly looking at the child and frowning. Ramon shrugged.

"Francesca was quite slight, as was his father."

"Still..." Mateu said, disapproval in his voice as he now looked critically at Stephen, who was sitting in a chair by the floor to ceiling window that faced the street, looking at a profusely illustrated book, the last volume o _f Floretum Sancti Francisci Assisiensis_ which Ramon had given him in exchange for a promise of exemplary behavior whilst staying with Oncle Mateu.

"He is quite strong and healthy and sharp as a barber's razor, Mateu. In less than three months, he has learned a startling amount of Catalan and speaks with an authentically native accent. I think he has a gift for tongues, just as his father had. He already is picking up French from being in Ullastret, knows all his prayers in Latin and is teaching himself to read. His _àvia_ and your Aunt Petronella were both quite taken with him when he went to stay with your mother in Lleida." Ramon said, knowing it was a risky gambit, given Mateu's rocky relationship with his mother.

"Francesca's accident is her only living grandchild. Of course she was taken with him." Mateu said, bitterly. His own last surviving child of four, his eldest son, Guillem, a promising young man of twenty-two unmarried and with no known issue,  had also died that spring from la grip. At almost fifty, Mateu would have no future children and no descendants, for his wife, _La Dama_ Eulàlia was beyond child-bearing age. "Now what is this about El Rosselló?" Mateu said, pointing to a stack of papers he had prepared in anticipation of Ramon's arrival.

"Your mother asked me to attend to it, to see to the succession, to see the title in process to be transferred to Esteven in guardianship now and wholly upon the attainment of his majority." Mateu's eyes flashed. "You do not concur?"

"It is absurd."

"He is a Rosselló, he is the last of the Domanovas, it is the terms of the historic ultimogeniture succession of El Rosselló. Without, your own father would never have been so titled, such as it was." Ramon said, pouring another glass of _cava._

"But he is an orphan, he is a bastard..." Mateu protested and the base of the bottle of _cava_ struck the table so hard that the wood rang and Stephen looked up from his book at Ramon and then Mateu, his pale silvery eyes huge in his thin face as he examined them silently.

"Esteve, my dear, be a good child and take your book out to the courtyard so that you might get some fresh air and to see the birds," Ramon said kindly to him. "Leave us here to have grown-up talk." Stephen got up and left the room, closing the door behind him. "For the love of our merciful Christ in Heaven, Mateu, have some compassion for the child." Ramon said."He did not choose the circumstances of his birth. He is your sister's son, the only blood descendant that is left to you on the face of the earth. He is a very pleasant child, as naturally well bred as one could hope. But this is not about the child is it? It is about El Rosselló. My God, you left it as soon as you could to come back to Barcelona. You have not been there in over fifteen years and you loathed it there as a youth."

"Loathe is putting it too strongly." Mateu demurred.

"There was no great love lost. What would you do up there? Give up your law practise here in town and breed sheep? Live on the pittance of the rents? Walk around in the mountains taking the air? You can scarce grow anything there but olives, pot herbs, wild romero and lavanda. Be the great man of the manor to the peasants? There is no opera in El Rosselló, no fine plazas, no libraries, no universities, no society, no season, no parties. No offence to your parents nor to your grandparents, but the poor old place is in desperate need of repair, no light undertaking either. Lleida is no Barcelona. Let the child have it. What else shall he have?"

"What about his father's family?"

"What about them? I sent Picasso to make inquiries in Ireland, to pursue any interest there on the child's behalf and to commence any necessary litigation, but God knows what will come of it, a thousand miles away. He has no aunt nor uncle in Ireland, apparently just dozens of cousins, almost as many he has here."

"It is all very well and good for the great Don Ramon d'Ullastret i Casademon who owns half of Empordà to be so solicitous of poor orphans and bastards. What would El Rosselló signify to a gentleman of your estate? It is not the same to me. I am merely a humble _advocat civil_ , not one of the largest property owners in Spain. The little I have, I have I earned myself." Mateu said, his attempt to appear self-effacing falling flat. Ramon tactfully did not now mention that Mateu's wife, Eulàlia had been an heiress, that they were now sitting in the very large, very fine house that her father had given her, the finest on their street in a very wealthy and historic section of Barcelona and that Mateu had been given a very generous distribution from his father's estate already and would in all likelihood be the sole heir when _la Dama_ Maria Teresa died. The estate in Lleida would most certainly go to him alone, as was customary. Mateu was, in his own right, a very successful and wealthy man, one of the most successful _advocats civils_ in Barcelona.

"How much is it worth to you?" Ramon said coldly.

"You insult me."

"He is your nephew, the sole living descendent of your family's illustrious bloodline. How should he go on for the rest of his life, without any family, completely alone in the world? God damn your stubborn jackass of a father to hell for what he did to this child for nothing but his own selfish and arrogant pride." Ramon exploded. "Your mother is right, he did murder Francesca, poor child. I hope that he rots in hell for all eternity. You want money for El Rosselló, fine, I will pay it but you will never, ever tell this child that I did so. You will never let him know that he apparently is nothing to the Domanovas. He is all you have, you selfish, greedy, foolish man. He is your posterity, like it or not."

"How dare you..." Mateu said, his face now purple with rage at being spoken to in such a manner. He was, however, no duellist and Ramon was infamous in Barcelona for having dispatched every foe he had ever met on the duelling ground. Mateu was no man of blood in any case and would not call Ramon out, so he stood there, sputtering in rage with nothing else to say.

"Name your price. That is how I dare." Ramon said, glaring at him. Mateu had considered of it long beforehand, when he had first seen the legal documents and now named an exorbitant amount of money, more than thrice what he guessed El Rosselló could ever be sold for in any capacity, could it actually have been sold, for selling it outright was a violation of the terms of its succession through the ages, for it could only be passed in sale to another relation of the Count of Rosselló, as it had been now for the last six hundred years. Mateu's price would make it some of the most expensive land ever to be sold in Catalunya to date, given it was of virtually no agricultural use whatever, fit only for sheep and goats to graze, no matter how historic or strategic it was.

"Ten thousand _escudos_."

"Fine." Ramon said, without blinking. "I will set up a distribution. It shall be completed when Esteven reaches the age of majority. And he shall stay here with you, whenever it is necessary and you and Eulàlia and your entire household shall treat him as the dear son of your beloved sister, not a bastard nor an orphan. He must spend this school year living here with you in Barcelona, he is too young now to live at Sant Cugat. He must be taken there and then picked up every day by someone solely responsible for him and I will find that person, a nurse to attend him here and he shall not trouble you in the least. I will provide materially whatever he needs. He is to want for absolutely nothing and I shall come and see him monthly, Mateu. Is that agreeable?" Mateu, his expression stony, nodded stiffly and extended his hand. Ramon could not bring himself to shake his cousin's extended hand. Mateu flushed with anger.

"How did you, Ramon, Catalan patriot, ever become particular friends with an officer in the service of His Most Catholic Monarch, Carlos III, the Bourbon _babau_ of Castilla i Aragon? You did Francesca no service when you introduced them." Mateu said sharply. "It would have been better for the both of them had they never met."

"Do you intend to stand by those words, sir? Do you?" Ramon said, rising quickly from his chair, his face turning white.

"No." Mateu said immediately, his face reddening further. "It must be the heat affecting me. I ask your pardon, Don Ramon." Mateu said, thinking he had ten thousand reasons for doing so, in addition to the retention of his own life and limb.

 

Stephen looked up as Ramon stepped out on the courtyard, closing the door behind him. Stephen had been studying the tiny bright feathered birds in a very large cage that hung in the shade under a large tree in the center of the courtyard, little green canaries that _La Dama_ Eulàlia kept as pets.

"Are you hungry?" Ramon said, looking into his face.

"No, Padrí." Stephen said looking up at him. "Don Mateu is not pleased with me."

"He will warm up to you, I promise." Ramon said. "He has only just met you." Stephen said nothing. "You are a brave little man." Ramon said. "Your _mare_ and _pare_ would be very proud of you. Tomorrow, I will find a very kind lady to come to be your nurse and to stay here with you, at least for a while. You will have a much nicer room than in Ullastret. This is a modern house, only thirty years old, not a medieval fortress -- your room will be a large one, with very good light, looking down on the busy street, with big windows and a large bed and your very own place for your books and your treasures and you shall have many books. If you work hard and get a good report from the Holy Fathers, you shall get a special present as well, every term, Esteve."

"I want to be with you." Stephen said very quietly.

"I am spending the night tonight and I will take you to see Sant Cugat del Vallès and to meet the Fathers tomorrow. And I will come here every month to see you and then every holiday and in the summer, you will come to Ullastret to stay with us, _el meu fill_. I have work to do, so you must study hard with the Holy Fathers."

"Will you come on a Saturday so we might go to Mass on Sunday morning?" Stephen asked. He loved to dance the Sardana after Mass with Ramon. He could not imagine holding the hand of the angry-looking man he had just met in order to dance.

"Of course, I shall." Ramon said, embracing him, smoothing his hair and kissing him. "Now I shall introduce you to everyone in the household. The cook has a boy near your age and the gardener as well and many children on the street to meet and play with. Far more than in Ullastret. Barcelona has everything a child could wish for. Your àvia will be coming to Barcelona to see you as well and your _Gran Tia_ Petronilla."

"Why is she my _gran tia_?"

"Because she is your àvia's half sister, though she is much younger, for she was the baby of her father’s second wife and and your _àvia_ is the eldest of his first wife. That is why she is even younger than your Oncle Mateu." Ramon said, taking his hand and swinging it. “Now, let us go to the kitchen and have some late _dinar_ , for _sopar_ is not for another five hours and you are a growing boy. I will tell you a story that every Catalan boy must know, the story of our _Senyera_ and the siege of Barcelona in the Year of Our Lord 897 by the Moors, led by Lobo ibn Mohammed, may his seed be cursed, a very wicked Moor who was then the governor of Lleida and whose troops killed our ancestor, Wilfrid the Shaggy, a great hero for Catalunya as some day you, too, Esteve, will fight for Catalunya." They walked together to the door and laughed, for without prompting they had both started to sing the beginning of _Els Segadors_ \-- _"Catalunya comtat gran, qui t’ha viste tan rica i plena._.."  which Ramon had taught Stephen as they rode down from Ullastret that day.

 


End file.
